


if you want me to fall (i'll fall)

by araki_iasip



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, high school fic, the gang's first Jimmy Buffet concert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 16:12:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18832114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/araki_iasip/pseuds/araki_iasip
Summary: It’s that time of the year when it’s getting harder and harder to deny that summer’s coming to a close, when you pretend not to notice how the humid August air starts to feel inexplicably,  undeniably different where it brushes against your bare skin.





	if you want me to fall (i'll fall)

Mac watches the distorted shadows on the cement wall across from him grow shorter, the light filtering in through the small window just beneath the ceiling. It’s that time of the year when it’s getting harder and harder to deny that summer’s coming to a close, when you pretend not to notice how the humid August air starts to feel inexplicably, undeniably different where it brushes against your bare skin.

Soon, it will be time to trade lazy, hazy days spent with the gang draping themselves haphazardly over the plush furniture in Dee and Dennis’ basement for book bags and lockers, for cutting class under the bleachers by the football field with Charlie and Dennis, and for disappointed, pitying looks from teachers, glances of disdain from his classmates as they sized Mac up, eyes lingering on the hand-me-down shoes his mom usually got for him from the thrift store across the street, if she happened to remember to buy them that year.

It was a shame. It had been a good summer, Mac thought. Once, they had even managed to venture far enough from the city to go swimming at the lake. They had raided the local gas station for candy and soda and chips for the drive before piling into Dennis’s sporty new car, Mac in the passenger seat with the windows rolled down, arm propped against the window sill and hand open to catch the wind. Once they had gotten there, they had stripped down to their bathing suits, Dennis laughing with Mac and Charlie as Dee struggled getting her cover up off over her back brace, before silently walking over to help her pull it over her head. After they were done swimming, getting drunk off of cheap beer Dennis had managed to swipe from his dad and eating the peanut butter sandwiches Charlie’s mom had packed for them, Mac noticed how the tips of Dennis’s damp hair had curled slightly where they framed his face.

It had been a good summer.

Just now, however, Dee was dousing herself in so much of some expensive, floral perfume, that Mac thought he might asphyxiate. Mac had no idea why girls thought these sorts of scents were appealing. Mac remembers once, at some high school party Dennis had roped him into tagging along to, he’d had to make out with Angie Sinclair during a game of seven minutes in heaven, remembers the sickeningly sweet smell flooding his senses, making him feel lightheaded and panicky. The smell of synthetic daisies had made Mac slightly nauseous ever since.

“Jesus Christ, Dee,” Dennis snaps from his position cross-legged on the basement floor, momentarily pausing in applying his foundation, eyes focused on his reflection in the shiny little compact he must have taken from Barbara’s purse “if you use anymore of that perfume, they’re not even going to let us into the concert because you’ll be a goddamn fire hazard.”

Dee squawks indignantly.

“It’s true,” Charlie offers helpfully, pausing to take a hefty swig from the bottle of whiskey they’d been splitting four ways before passing it back to Mac. He’s got his back resting against Mac’s legs where they dangle down from his place on the couch. “It’s like, you light a match within a mile radius of her, the whole place could go up in flames. I saw it happen once,” he finishes cheerfully.

Dennis snorts disbelievingly, before turning his full attention back to his makeup, the pads of his fingers skating over his cheekbones. Mac notices a spot where it’s not fully blended, just below his eye, wonders what it would be like to reach out and smooth it out with his finger, what the smooth skin there would feel like.

“You laugh now,” Dee begins, eyes narrowed, “but just you wait until I bag the hottest guy at the concert.You’ve got to pop, send the signal that you’re a high class lady if you want to attract a high class man. I’ll have you know that perfume on a girl drives the men wild.”

As she turns away, rolling her eyes, Mac swears he hears her mutter something along the lines of “not that it would do anything for any of you dickwads.” Mac feels something inside his chest flare up at the words.

“Dee, you’re a seventeen year old bird in a metal back brace twice your size” Mac starts, jumping to his feet, “no one gives a fuck what you smell like.”

Dee opens her mouth to reply, but Dennis must sense the situation is getting heated, because he smoothly snaps his compact shut, moving to stand by Mac on the sofa, and placing his hand at the nape of his neck, moving his index finger soothingly against the soft hairs there. Mac feels frozen in place, for a moment, a warmth radiating from the spot where Dennis is touching him throughout the rest of his body, and a flush rising high on his cheeks. He’d been drinking with the gang, but he didn’t know he was this drunk. He might have to slow down.

“Woah, woah, easy there, buddy,” he starts, giving Mac’s shoulder a little squeeze. “See, now, this is where you’re going wrong, Dee. Wearing too much fragrance…..that’s a rookie mistake. It covers up all the pheromones. There’s nothing more irresistible to women than the natural scent of a man.”

Charlie wrinkles his nose in confusion.

“Are those the things that make all the girls act all weird and crazy and mood swingy all the time?”

“Not hormones, Charlie,” Dennis sighs, “pheromones, it’s animal magnetism-Biology 101. They’re this stuff that is released from your skin that makes girls want to fuck you when they smell it. It’s a very powerful aphrodisiac, like catnip for the babes. It’s almost impossible to resist.”

Charlie ponders this for a moment.

“Dennis,” he starts seriously, looking mildly horrified, “I don’t want little bugs flying out of my skin into other peoples’ bodies.”

Dennis does a double take at Charlie, starting to speak before visibly stopping himself and taking a deep breath as he poises himself to continue.

“Don’t listen to him, Charlie,” Dee interrupts, crossing her arms across her chest. “You know what I think? I think he’s completely making this shit up. ” She smirks at Dennis “I think he’s just jealous because he knows I’m going to get in on all of the action at the Buffet concert, and he’s not even going to notice any girls, because he’s too wrapped up in his best fr-”

“Yeah man,” Mac begins, talking over Dee before she could finish her sentence. Dennis looks somewhat relieved she was cut off, although he doesn’t know why. “this sounds like some elitist liberal bullshit that the left wants to brainwash us with to make us think that we come from zoo animals. God made humans way more smarter than-”

“Everybody, just shut up” Dennis explodes, throwing his hands in the air. ‘It’s not my fault that I’m the only fucking person in this room smart enough to understand basic science. Dee, you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Mac, maybe if you smelled less like the men’s discount cologne rack at the department store, girls would actually want to date you.”

“You goddamn son of a bitch!”

***

Three and a half hours of arbitration later, the gang finally makes it out of the basement and gets on the road to the concert. It had taken three impassioned readings from assorted bible verses, four illegible diagrams drawn on the back of old receipt paper, and one retelling of one of Dennis’s various sexual conquests in excruciating detail (Mac had, rather unsuccessfully, tried to focus on the whir of the fan, during this part), but eventually the gang reached an armistice, although what exactly they were fighting about and exactly what their solution had been, none of them would quite recall by the time they reached the venue.

They are too preoccupied with finishing the rest of their liquor and singing enthusiastically along to whatever song came on the radio, overcompensating with their volume whenever they don’t know the lyrics, their laughter bouncing off of the city traffic echoing out into the early evening.

Mac is preoccupied watching Dennis, the curve of his jaw illuminated by the streetlights and the purplish glow cast by the setting sun, the light freckles on his nose that are peeking through his makeup, the relaxed set of his mouth, smile easy and free as he reached down to turn up the volume to some pop ballad he particularly likes. It takes them longer than they had expected, in the city traffic, to reach their destination. Mac wishes the ride were even longer.

They arrive almost half an hour late, so they end up standing toward the back of the lawn section, although no one finds it in them to care all too much. Instead, Mac looks out on the sea of swaying bodies in front of him, brightly colored shirts that remind him vaguely of his time at the beach when he was a little kid, before his dad got locked up for the first time, and his mom would take him out early in the morning to collect seashells and sand dollars on the shore . He looks at the couples standing, hands linked or heads resting on the other’s shoulder. He feels the heat of Dennis’s hand against his knuckles from where he’s stood next to him.

The sun has almost completely vanished, and everything is is bathed in a dusky blue light by the time Dee announces she needs to piss, and Charlie volunteers to join her in hopes of hitting a concession stand on the way. His chest feels bubbly and light from the liquor and from the 6-pack of beer they managed to sneak in down the back of Dee’s shirt, passing off the bulk as a part of her back brace. Dennis’s shoulder bumps against his every now and then as they sway slightly to the music, and when he looks over at Mac and laughs freely, disbelieving, even, Mac feels electric.

The smile fades from Dennis’s face as they look at each other, slipping into something more focused, determined, maybe, and before Mac can ask if he’s okay, before he even fully registers what’s happening, Dennis is winding his arms around his shoulders, lightly, cautiously, like he’s not sure he’s allowed– like he thinks if he holds him too close, Mac might break.

It’s the night air, Mac thinks, or the alcohol, or maybe just the indescribable, indestructible feeling (raw and flayed open, like an exposed nerve ) that he sometimes gets around Dennis that gives Mac the courage to place his own hands on Dennis’s waist, drawing him ever so slightly closer to him.

At this, Mac feels Dennis let out a long exhale against his neck, letting his head rest against Mac’s shoulder, tightening his grip on Mac’s upper back.

In the crowd of bodies, under the cover of nighttime, bodies moving together too slowly to the music, Mac thinks, they could have been anyone.

**Author's Note:**

> title is from Sportstar by (Sandy) Alex G (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMQXwTXld1I )
> 
> special thanks to luce for sending me the prompt this came from
> 
> i'm araki-iasip on tumblr :)


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